Robot Breaks World Record: Why Choose Humans Over AI Partners?

Zhejiang Daily (Reporter Zhu Yinyan Sharing Alliance·Shangyu Zhang Hanfeng) “I announce that the final score of the ‘most consecutive badminton matches with a mobile robot’ challenge launched in Shangyu, Shaoxing, Zhejiang was 1,452 times, breaking the record and the challenge was successful!” On the afternoon of December 22, there was thunderous applause in the Hangzhou Bay Joint Innovation Center. As the Guinness World Records Certification Officer finished speaking, a badminton robot independently developed by Shangyu’s talent team firmly won this new world record.

Facing the incoming balls from Lu Lan, the former World Championship badminton women’s singles champion, and Zhu Si, the women’s singles champion from the 14th Shangyu Games, this robot reacted quickly – the high-speed visual tracking system instantly captured the trajectory of the badminton, the autonomous motion control algorithm completed path planning in milliseconds, the high-dynamic movement system drove the body to flexibly translate and make emergency stops and turns, and the precision hitting system swung the racket steadily, accurately hitting each incoming ball to the designated area. After rounds of attack and defense, the robot always maintained a stable rhythm of fighting, and finally successfully set a Guinness World Record with 1452 consecutive times of fighting.

“The stability and accuracy of the badminton robot are very good and worthy of praise.” Lu Lan, who walked off the court, spoke highly of it.

Badminton moves fast and has variable landing points, which puts the robot’s visual recognition, real-time calculation and motion control capabilities to a very high test. This record-breaking badminton robot stands out because of its millisecond-level perception and decision-making capabilities. It is equipped with core modules such as a high-speed visual tracking system, an autonomous motion control algorithm, a high-dynamic movement system, and a precision hitting system. It can identify and predict the flight path of a badminton in milliseconds, and simultaneously complete rapid movement, swinging, and return movements. It is one of the world’s leading intelligent sports robots.

It is understood that the robot has expanded into multiple application scenarios: in the field of professional sports, it can simulate the batting habits of players of different styles and provide personalized auxiliary training for athletes; in youth sports education, it can serve as an “intelligent sparring partner” to help beginners standardize their batting movements; in rehabilitation medical scenarios, it can assist patients in physical coordination training through low-intensity human-machine sparring; at the same time, it can also enter science and technology museums and experience halls to bring interesting human-computer interaction experiences to the public.

In September this year, the Hangzhou Bay Joint Innovation Center officially launched operations, attracting a group of technology companies and scientific research teams with core technologies to settle in. This Guinness Challenge project is a landmark achievement of the Innovation Center in promoting industry-university-research collaboration and efficient transformation of scientific and technological achievements.